By Michael Heidt
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
Speaking at Holy Trinity, Hurst, in Texas, Bishop Keith Ackerman told Forward in Faith North America (FIFNA) members that “heresy is a perversion.”
The retired Bishop of Quincy and current President of FIFNA, Ackerman told his listeners that heresy was a “twisting of the truth in such a way as to be believable.”
This, according to Ackerman, was often presented in an attractive manner and followed a perverse logic. “Would Adam and Eve have succumbed to the devil if he were ugly and disgusting? Sin is attractive.” he stated, before blasting heretical logic.
Referring to the German philosopher Hegel, Ackerman exclaimed, “Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis,” can become, “Jesus is Lord, Jesus is not Lord, Jesus is occasionally Lord. Logic that is not based on truth and revelation is no good… are you willing to articulate that Jesus is Lord?”
Earlier in his address, Bishop Ackerman named several heretical innovations, listing the ordination of women, approval of homosexual behavior and same sex marriages. However, FIFNA’s President believed these were symptoms of a deeper problem, stating, “The division today is between those who believe in a revealed religion or an evolutionary one. Did God reveal Himself completely in Jesus, or in some other way?”
Ackerman likened the evolutionary approach to Moonyism and Islam, “They believe that Jesus did a pretty good job but then God decided to finish it off with Rev. Moon. Did Mohammed finish off what Jesus didn’t do?”
In contrast to evolutionary “cafeteria Christianity” the retired Bishop of Quincy described Christianity that rested on revealed truth as catholic and orthodox. This, said Ackerman, meant adherence to four things, “The sacramental system, Apostolic Succession, the threefold ministry of Bishop, Priest and Deacon and ‘right belief’.”
Referring to the “unbroken heritage of the English Church,” Ackerman argued that the post-Reformation Church of England was essentially continuous with the ancient, catholic and orthodox, Church, that existed before the sixteenth century reform.
According to Bishop Ackerman, it was this Church that was exported around the world by the English, recalled to its heritage by the nineteenth century Oxford Movement and exists today within faithful, orthodox, catholic, Anglicanism, which holds to the truth as revealed by God in Christ.
In conclusion, the Bishop returned to heretics, “There are really nice heretics out there but they do not love you enough to tell you the truth.” What is the truth? For the President of Forward in Faith North America, it is the, “English catholic expression of a living faith, rich in the truth of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Forward in Faith North America is a jurisdiction within the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), and has oversight of the non-geographical Missionary Diocese of All Saints (MDAS). The MDAS has grown in the past year to over twenty parishes and is led by Bishop William Ilgenfritz
